Moscow evacuates more than 10000 people over bomb threats

An emergency services source told RT "This appears to be a case of telephone terrorism, but we have to check the credibility of these messages".

The official RIA Novosti news agency quoted an unnamed source in the security services as saying 45,000 people had been evacuated Tuesday from 205 buildings in 22 cities.

More than 10,000 people have been evacuated from public spaces across Moscow after authorities received several bomb threats.

In the past few days a series of anonymous phone calls have been received in Stavropol, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Magadan, Vladivostok, Perm, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk.

Among the locations affected are three of the capital's biggest railway stations, more than a dozen shopping centers - including GUM, located next to Red Square - and at least three universities, the leading First Moscow State Medical University, and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations among them.

The spate of threats came after two days of similar calls caused disruptions in cities across Russian Federation, with the state-run RIA Novosti news service reporting some 45,000 people were evacuated nationwide.

Saratov saw evacuations at the City Hall and municipal Duma, followed by reports of evacuations at a university.

The Interior Ministry and Security Council declined to comment.

Fifteen people died and 50 were injured in the blast as bodies, blood and wreckage were strewn across the carriage of the train blown up between Sennaya Ploshchad and Sadovaya metro stations in Russia's second city.